Origins
by Cyanide Lemons
Summary: Rewrite of "101 Uses For Sporks" and "Frost" They are not gods. Not really. That doesn't mean they should not be feared.


In a time before the moon crashed upon the horizon of the earth, and time was as scattered as the grains of sand that littered the halls of the fractured realms, he woke as the First.

There were many of him; wispy, vapour like things made more out light and energy than any solid material. He was the beginning.

This beginning started out as more logic than magic, more science fiction than fantasy.

The gathering atoms and neutrons and particles of life had been caught in the swirling mass of heated energy that exploded from the big bang, to coalesce into one point of time, gathering momentum as it went, breaking the fragile barriers only to burst out of the cracks between space to fill the void that had been left behind by the Old Ones. The ancient ones that had existed before the lines between realties had formed, and then as they had disappeared into the abyss, had left glowing trails that he then followed.

He found the realm of Oblivion. Death, who was not yet alive (for there was no life to die), stood by Oblivion's side and greeted the new born First.

"Brother" Was what he said.

Thus he was named. Gathered himself in the arms of his new found family, woke up the sleeping Oblivion, and found himself _feeling._

Feeling the stone beneath his feet, the wind upon his skin, and the pulsing flow of waking gods.

He was First.

He was Last.

He walked the halls of his mind and saw the future as it had been. As it would be. And because he saw the future the future happened. And because the future happened so time had to happen as well. And because time happened so too did those moments in time. Thus, reality was born.

It started as a barren plane of existence that grew as he lived in it, as his brothers and sisters where born and curiously wandered the frayed edges.

Soon this was not enough. His fellow gods where not enough. They grew restless and agitated and demanded there be more. And so there was.

Three dimensional space came first. And for a time it was perfect, the gods played with the fabrics that held it up, and new things where born.

But even that was too little, so he set out to create an object that would occupy the minds of his fellow brethren.

And in his hands the world began to grow, as a thought, as a feeling. And he became fond of this thought, so he kept it close to his heart, and surrounded it with a layer of protective laws that the others obeyed.

But it was small this world, so he made others, scattered them across the expanses of the universe. They were barren, and no life would take on them, and so he said to Death;

"Go upon the sands of time and find me your sister, she who stands in fields of blood red lilies, and bring her to me."

And Death did. The one he brought back was different than the others who had come before her, she was young, and vibrant, and her smile incited some to riot, and her voice brought minds to crumble.

The others thought her peculiar, not quite truly one of them, for she was not cold and barren as they were. Her passion delighted Death, who declared her his twin, and was soon not ever seen without her. And the First looked on as the worlds, once barren and useless, bloomed under her care.

The Gods, inspired by this show of creativity, started making things as well. Miasmas of light, voids inside voids, color and fire and mini realities and worlds inside worlds. They created and created.

But soon they got tired of creating, and brought their attention back to the new worlds that wandered their realm, but the still was too much, and the perfection to clear cut.

Some of the Gods started destroying the things they and the First created, if only for there to be movement .And so Death said to Life,

"Let them throw their shiny baubles around and watch as they shatter prettily, but you and me my dear, should we not find something better? Should we not show them what more there can be?"

So upon the first world that the First had created, a thought sparked. The first thought not of their own, the first thing to think like them was born. Life and Death had collaborated to make the first _being_.

And he smiled, for what was, was always, and what will be had already happened. The Gods continued their playing, for that is what children do, and the universe kept expanding, for that is what universes do. More things began, and more things ended, till finally the First gathered his brothers and sisters around him and said

"I am no longer the creator here, no longer the First. You have made this place your own, you have started new realities inside this one" Here he looked at Death, and at Oblivion, at Time and at Delirium. He looked at Rage, and at Calm and even looked at Void, who rarely ever came out of the abyss. He looked at them all and … Disappeared.

It was not a death, for Death could not reap his siblings, and it was not Oblivion, for Oblivion was nothing. It just was.

And with his leaving he brought along the first world, the one that lived inside the center of his being, with him.

The universe stagnated for a while as the Gods, in some sort of fugue, stood still inside the mind the First hand created for them. But as Time stood upon his vantage point and gently conducted to music only he could hear, things began moving again.

The first being made more beings, and more gods had a hand in creating, and more gods hand a hand in destroying. And slowly, things evolved.

Personality developed. She was strange and delighting and revolting and she made the Gods laugh. She made the cry. She made them, _them_. Rage turned his back on Calm, his twin. Time forgot all but the symphony in his head; Death grew bitter towards Oblivion, who simply wandered in a haze. Life tried a hand at Chance, and met Evolution. Delirium teamed up with Fantasy and created Imagination. Things started not just being, but _being._

….

After the First left, he no longer was the First. And so a new name was needed, besides brother.

He named himself _Hume_ and wandered the universes and reality and worlds that littered not only the ones he had a hand at helping to create, but also the ones that inhabited other places.

He was not the only First after all, or more precisely, what he had been had not been the only First. The parallel lines that run between paradoxes insured that these Firsts never met, but that is only in theory. Whatever creates Firsts and their siblings and the ideas that made them up made it so that they all had some thin thread to connect them together.

As such, it was not too difficult to dig his hands in the threads of reality to claw his way through these walls.

The world he burst through was different than his, but similar too. It had a beginning and it had an end. It had its gods and had its history. But it was only a world. The laws of this reality made it so life outside this world was impossible; it was a lonely child of an absent mother.

But that was not quite true; in the far reaches out the reality he could feel the echoes of some meddling god who had tried to start another life binding world.

But it so far away that it was almost unperceivable.

He curiously poked at the edges of the current domain he was occupying. As he was not of that reality he had no form, but not everything needs a body to interact with the actual layers that make up all things.

And so time went on, and he eventually met some of the actual Gods of this world. He integrated himself into their thoughts and the thoughts of their creations.

They were older, but more violent and flighty and prone to cruel amusement. And yet Hume, who had grown up with a people that were prone to destroy entire worlds for entertainment thought this to be quite alright.

This world had a name.

Earth.

…

He spent so much time on this Earth, this Gaia, that he started to forget his old reality. (Not really, but it grew dim and small and he no longer thought of it.)

So he was quite surprised when his brother Death found the path he had created between realities and pulled him aside from his meddling of the human race. (He had had a hand in their creation after all, he was aloud some tweaking).

"Brother," Said Death "You must come back home, The Old Ones have arisen again."

And so he left.

Not much is known about what happened after that. The chronicles say that a war was raged and Hume was then exiled from his home when he lost. Some say that he was able to consume the essence of one of the old ones and was changed irrevocably. All we know is when years had passed he came back through the barrier, sealed up the reality from the outside, and cut the thread that connected him to the other realities.

He was no longer the First.

He was something less. Something more.

He started gathering a group of beings who had a multitude of different strengths and skills. He even started charming the other pantheons' followers, or the other gods themselves. His whole personality changed.

His visual body change. It seemed that his new secretiveness and deviousness made it impossible for his own body to decide what form to take.

But there was one thing that stayed the same. Earlier in his life he had falling in love with Hunt, who gave him a last gift as they parted. This gift took on the form of antlers when Hume was pursuing whatever thing he desired. It was a symbolic gesture, but there was power in it as well. It had helped him ground himself between the realities as when it seemed he was to lose himself.

And so it was for the decades it took for the beings on the world to evolve he made his own empire, until he came to the birthing of a new God. She was the daughter of Belief and Disturbia, and Logic turned his back upon her. Hume watched her grow, and somewhere on the horizon a thought filtered in his mind.

"_Her people will grow strong, but weak in a most fundamental way. How…Strange. The possibilities would be endless…If I were to find one who was compatible…."_

So with a glint of greed in his eyes he smiled at Magic, and took again a role of brother. He was fond of her of course, but at a base level he was waiting for a time when she would willingly give up the power he was seeking.

Such a time came early in the 1990's, when Magic took a fall, slipped and hit her head. She went to sleep, left the building so to speak, and said before she was leaving,

"_My People are idiots, brother. Do me a favour and whip them into shape, will you?" _

And he did.

Well, he would.

But first he travelled to a small surrey neighborhood and found a little boy.

It was one of those nights, stormy and dark. The month was October, and a cold breeze swept snow into dancing patterns as lightning crashed against the heavens. Shadows crept into houses, and strange mirages formed in snow banks and frozen rivers. It wasn't quiet. It should have been quiet; the blizzard should have blanketed the sound till only the soft patter of ice could be heard. But it wasn't. In the dead of night, whimpers could be heard. The wind seemed to moan in pain, and a wolf in the distant sang a funeral dirge.

He was eight.

Eight was a good age too be. For most children it would be an age of learning. Running around with curiosity in their eyes, asking non stop questions in exited voices.

He is not most children.

Where most children dig in the sand for lost treasure, he digs for bones. Where most children draw suns and trees and happy faces on side walks with chalk, he draws inconceivable things. He lives with spiders and his only friends are the shadows on the wall.

His relatives made him so.

He has one arm that is shorter than the other, almost unnoticeably, from when he was two and a break had not set right. His eye sight has been permanently ruined by bad light and even worse nutrition. His hair is lank and dry, his lips chapped. His voice comes out raspy and thin, his tong is not used to speaking. His eyes shine like the cornered hyena.

Most children shy away from him. Those that don't only aggravate his situation.

He is alone.

And the snow continues to fall.

...

Ice crystals have frozen on his eye lashes, threatening to shut his eyes forever. Blue and white have encased him in a frozen coffin.

_He doesn't know where he is, the forest is dark and silent, the ground cold. His family had locked him out because they had "important guest" to entertain. It was October. The snow was softly falling and seemed to sparkle in the light that ran through the tree tops._

_He was lying at the base of an old oak tree._

_His toes had long ago gone numb. _

_Footsteps crunched in the distance, he blearily opens an eye._

"_Hello mortal child"_

He feels sluggish, unresponsive. Earlier he had tried to stay warm, but he was too tired now to do much but blink listlessly at the figure that had, by some trick of the light, appeared out of nowhere.

In the dark but ethereal shadows of the night it appeared at once a horrendously hideous figure, and unspeakably beautiful. Shimmering fabric (or was that wings?) blew in the cold breeze, and fur rippled against bare skin.

Whether male or female, he could not tell.

Whether human, he was sure it was not.

He had heard, of course, stories of the fey. His relatives might have thought to raise him in ignorance, but they where woefully unsubtle about it. Words like "magic" had been banned from the house, but he had enough sense to ask the librarian for folklore books.

He had thought when he was younger, that perhaps he was a changeling child, and that was why his family hated him so.

But hope had never lasted long in his body, and those thoughts had turned to dust as surely as ash.

But the figure that faced him now, could it be anything but a creature of such taboo things as magic?

Unless somewhere down the line the human genome had mutated to allow antlers, he was pretty sure the thing wasn't even the same species as him.

It kneeled.

"_What a sight is this? Half dead already, buried in ice under an oak tree?"_

Up close its face seemed to shift between a multitude of different people and animals. Old, young, beautiful and horrendously disfigured, it painted a picture of ancient knowledge.

"_One would think you to be a gift left for a trickster god, a sacrifice most unpleasant."_

He tried to open his mouth, he did, but his sight was wavering terribly, and a numbness that seemed to seep into his very soul was taking over.

"_Or maybe an offering for hungry beasts. It has been a long time since the dogs have been fed. Fresh you would be. Though maybe a bit frozen." _

The being giggled.

"_But more than that, are you not?"_

It brushed hair and snow from his forehead, revealing the scar that would plague him when he was older.

"_Child of prophecy, child of long forgotten blood. Oh the blood you bear how sweet in sings. Power, you are."_

Its long, spidery hands reached around and picked him up, as if he where just a leaf on the wind. The touch was as hot as if it where fire itself, and he screamed, and scream _Because he was burning up, melting away from his bones, being consumed by ash and smoke and branding metal. _

The being did not let go, did not falter, just brought the now struggling body closer, encased the child in more fire, more warmth, and laughed.

"_Oh the wonders you will bring, oh the chaos you will spread. How delicious, how delightful."_

He falls limp, breath heaving from his body in great bursts. He is no longer cold, no longer numb, but this is almost worst.

"Why...?" He asks, in between breaths.

"_Because child, what a pitiful waste of death. A King needs subjects, does he not? And what a beautiful subject you would be." _

It flashes jagged teeth at him, close enough for him to smell something acidic, something sweet on its breath.

"_You will grow up, child, grow up and take control of power, of an ancient power. Meet things most only dream about. You will become a shadow that chases shadows. And then I will claim you. Than I will take back this life I have breath into you. Than you will be __**mine.**_"

His vision wavers again, and his body shivers, and with a great sigh, he lets go.

Sleep never came so sweet.

When he woke up, it was to the cramped and dusty space of his room. He blinked in surprised, sure for a moment that at the least he should be outside, in the cold. Except he wasn't feeling cold at all, in fact, he almost felt too _hot_. Kicking of the ratty blanket that had bunched and corded around his feet he gingerly steps on to the cracking floorboards that surrounded the bed.

The house was quiet, and he wonders for a moment what had woken him up. It wasn't his uncle's snore that was for sure. He had gotten use to that.

He had had a dream.

It was a nice one, even with almost dying and being found by a strange…thing.

It was pretty vivid as well, and he can almost feel the stinging cold of snow on his cheek.

He quietly goes about getting ready for the day since he knows that he won't be able to get to sleep now. The battered clock on one of the built in shelves pronounces it to be six o'clock, so he knows he has at least 45 minutes before his aunt comes to unlock him from the cupboard.

He is going to have to wait until than before he can set about leaving the spider infested darkness that has become his life. But that's okay, he can be patient.

When he does get out of the cupboard, his aunt's face looks kind of disturbed. As if she was half expecting a corps to great her. There is a strange sheen to her eyes and for a moment he thinks she is going to hit him. For what, he doesn't really know.

She grabs his arm roughly but hisses and drops it as if in pain. He's burning up.

She forces a thermometer in his mouth and when it comes out at 39.9°C she looks almost worried. Almost. And it might have been mixed with glee.

She orders in to stay in his "room" until he is no longer sick, because she is worried for her Duddykins and wouldn't want him contaminating her family with his germs.

"You're not to come out until your fever is down, you hear me freak?"

Chap 1

There is an explosion. It rocks the grounds and screeches in eardrums. It refuses to be ignored. As someone closest to the blast, he can only look on in horrified awe as his skin peels and bubbles. Of all the explosions he has seen in potion's class this has to be the most destructive. Even his desk is crumbling to ash. He can't even hear the screams and shouts around himself, his ears ring only with the lingering sound of the shockwave.

Someone is trying to pull him away. The second their hand encloses his arm the pain rushes his nerve endings.

Darkness swarms him quickly, taking pain and awareness along with it.

…..

_They were sitting on the steps of an old castle, stars bright overhead. Her hair flamed in the light of the moon, and her green eyes glinted off of his glasses like willow wisps._

"—Harry!"

_A child lay curled in a ratty blanket, spiders dangling from the emancipated form. A lullaby was sung in a raspy, dry voice._

"_There was an old woman who lived in a shoe._

_She had so many children; she didn't know what to do._

_She gave them some broth, without any bread,_

_Whipped them all soundly, and sent them to bed…_

"—eed Madame Pomfree…"

_He was eight, he thinks, when little Johanne broke her wrist. The mother had gently shushed her daughter as a boy (had he been one of Dudley's friends? Harry couldn't remember) was being reprimanded by a teacher._

_He watched as the pair left the school yard, the trust and love the little girl had in the elder, the gentle care and anxiety the other showed as they went to the hospital._

_And knew that he would never call the Dursleys his family._

"—Potion's gotten' in 'is blood, like a poison…"

…_It was his second year, and he had in a fit of rage yelled at a scornful sky (the emotions of betrayalfustrationanger__**sadness **__as catghosthufflepuff__**Hermione**__ was petrifiedslainattacked__**DeadInside**__)_

_He went to bed feeling empty._

"—ot looking good my dear"

_He doesn't know where he is, the forest is dark and silent, the ground cold. His family had locked him out because they had "important guest" to entertain. It was October. The snow was softly falling and seemed to sparkle in the light that ran through the tree tops._

_He was lying at the base of an old oak tree._

_His toes had long ago gone numb. _

_Footsteps crunched in the distance, he blearily opens an eye._

"_Hello mortal child"_

"—is magic seems to be accelerating the effects"

_He watches' the boa make a lazy (but swift) escape from the zoo's reptilian house. He hopes when the handlers finally remember their training and go chasing after it, that'll already be long gone._

_He wishes he could escape as well, that he could find a home besides the four walls of his cupboard. _

_He feels (proud? Happy? Envious?) content as he realises he doesn't regret it, not in the face of his punishment, not in the face of his uncles purple face._

_He had years before decided that he will never regret again, because it is a liberating feeling to not feel guilty._

_(Before he would plead that it wasn't his fault that his teachers hair turned blue, or that the wind lifted him up higher than thought possible. Now he smiles and perhaps that scares his relatives more, because they stop the beatings for a while, before finding other ways to make his life horrible)_

"—Professor! He is going into shock—"

_His uncle is ranting at the television because of some political scandal involving two of the country's top political candidate._

_He doesn't understand but keeps hearing the term Freaks, Fags and Unnatural._

_He doesn't recognise the second one, but knows (very well) the two others._

_They were his name and middle name for most of his life. In his family's mind they described him better than any other adjective._

_Latter on he checks the dictionary, but doesn't understand any better why his uncle would call someone a cigarette. _

"His hearts failing!"

_Blood gushes in its veins, in its walls. Magic, potent and undiluted by wizarding hands forms a maelstrom in the middle. Its conscience, ancient and unending stirs it from its slumber. Above it can feel the dearest one, the beloved child walking its halls. _

_The boy's magic is fighting, feral and wild (so very similar) the bonds in which it is being held._

_It seeks freedom, it seeks power, it seeks to join and bend and twist and __**become**__._

_If it could smile it would, for it has been so long (too long) since a chosen (there have been many, so many have walked on its stone, made love in its corners, fought in its corridors) has come home._

_It lets lose a tendril of energy in response, and basks in the warmth of famillychild__**Kin **__as the young one relaxes into its embrace._

_It hungrily consumes the resulting blood that still runs down the child's arms, it's not enough (never enough) but for now it will do until the sickness runs its course, until it can interfere and __**change.**_

He awoke.

Through strands of the past and rivers of things he had almost forgotten, he pulled himself out of the abyss long enough to see the concerned face of Madame Pomfree. Behind her where the blurry figures of his friends and in the corner of his eyes he was sure he could see the tell-tale robes of the Headmaster and Professor Snape.

He could only wonder why they looked so grim before the dreams dragged him under again.

….

"_His Heart's failing"_

There was a shocked silence for a moment before Madame Pomfree snaps into action, casting spells and ordering people to pass her vials.

She ignores the black-ish veins that could be seen under pale skin (the potion had such odd properties when mixed with blood, Professor Snape was no doubt itching to investigate that side-effect) and goes straight for the heart.

They had been lucky so far, the poison was relatively slow acting, and they had been able to counter-act most of it before it reached anything vital, but most was not all, and there was a chance that when (not if, never if) he woke up, he wouldn't be the same.

Already the physical changes had been startling.

She withdraws after an hour of intense spell casting, looking exhausted but not grief stricken.

He's survived, for now.

She looks at the surrounding people (any other patient and she would have shooed them out long ago), the tear stained face of his friends (the idea that the trio would become a duo scares her more than she had thought) the stoic (but crumbling, oh so crumbling) mask of Severus, and the worried (he had more at stake than most) eyes of the Headmaster.

She looks at his head of house (Minnie had always thought herself more of a mother figure, if only she wasn't restrained my duty and obligations) who is anxiously wringing her hands. And her heart strain's in its prison of flesh and bone.

"We can only wait now."

…

"It's no longer a matter of a poison, or a potion." Snape says, and Hermione (in her worry, in her terrible sadness) listens, because she knows that she can't save her friends this time, can't solve a riddle or cast a spell. She listens, and she learns so that this sort of thing doesn't happen again.

"It's essentially a part of Potters blood stream, its copying itself at an alarming rate; no doubt it will soon start to attach itself to his tissue."

Ron for once in his life is listening too (somewhere deep inside he blames himself, his ignorance) while at the same time keeping an eye on Neville.

"It's affects are startling, it seems to be a sort of life support system, stabilising his body while it shuts down organs and modifies them. It's also, if I'm not mistaken, correcting his Myopia"

The group shuffles a bit as Hermione explains what myopia is, and the professor ignores them once again.

"Then why did his heart fail?"

The group looks at Neville in shock; he hadn't spoken since they had brought Harry to the infirmary (His guilt seeps through his pores like sweat, it's in his eyes and mouth and they can do nothing, because guilt too can be a poison, and Harry's survival is the only cure)

The professor only answers distractingly, busy looking at what little they know about Harry's situation in paper form.

"It is not a perfect system, but it is learning. After Madame Pomfree stabilised him it copied the magic used and perfected its structure. It is continuing such adjustments as it goes" He looks up from the parchments, face scowling (Hermione has a suspicion that Snape doesn't hate Harry as much as he says he does, as during the whole thing he has been rather easy on his vitriol) and addresses the rest to the Headmaster.

"What we need to worry about is the things that it is changing, who knows what consequence there will be with it meddling with his genetic structure."

…

The second time he wakes, only Hermione and Ron and Neville are there. They look pale and drained in the false light of the morning. Hermione is holding his hand, asleep in on Ron's shoulder, Neville is a little bit farther, resting uneasily, looking pained.

_He worries like a warrior._

The thought is sudden, alien, but he cannot ponder it for very long before sleep drags him down again.

Before he succumbs he can't help but wish for a glass of water (his throat feels like it did after Aunt Petunia tried to feed him bleach), but he is too week to open his mouth and ask.

He closes his eyes and loses himself in the darkness.

On the table besides his bed a pitcher of water trembles.

_Sleep my Beloved_

….

(Here are the facts.

Magic (with a capital M) is a being who can't quite be called a god in the traditional sense. It sleeps far underground. And it's only visitor is a creature called Hume. Magic is the origin of magic, and thus it is not something special to wizards, the ground, the air itself breaths with it.

Sometimes magic evolves to develop its own sense of being. Places that constantly gather it will slowly (when the right conditions are true) become aware. This is what happened to Hogwarts.

Hogwarts is a possessive entity, twisted far beyond what the legend tells us.

Lily Evans once promised her soul to a devil.

He wants it back.)

….

The ruckus didn't die down until later that day, Ron and Hermione (plus Neville) had all been shooed from the infirmary and told to go to class, which they did, sullenly.

Madame Pomfree was taking care of some business with professor Snape (her potions stock was terribly low).

As such, the third time Harry woke, he was alone.

The various aches and pains that answered this action actually had Harry wincing for once. He wasn't sure exactly what had happened (He remembers dreaming, in swirls of colour and bursts of sound) but can assume, a minute later that it has to do with the potion he had been dowsed in.

_Then why aren't Neville and professor Snape here too?_

His solution is not forthcoming, so he eases himself out of bed, in the search of answers.

He still feels sick, and there is a sluggishness that wasn't there the day before, but he doesn't notice that anything is wrong until he reaches for the pitcher by the bed is still there. Black blots his vision.

He yelps, startled as he looks at the veines of darkness that creep along his hands and arms.

He needs to find a mirror. Now.


End file.
